Stedmans V&S (or V&S for short) is a Canadian variety discount

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...

chain. Stedmans operates its stores mainly in smaller towns and cities in Canada. The chain's stores today are comparable in size and merchandise offered to similar chains such as

Fields Fields may refer to: Music *Fields (band), an indie rock band formed in 2006 *Fields (progressive rock band), a progressive rock band formed in 1971 * ''Fields'' (album), an LP by Swedish-based indie rock band Junip (2010) * "Fields", a song by ...

, SAAN (now defunct) and

The Bargain! Shop The Bargain! Shop Holdings, Inc., also known as TB!S, is a Canadian discount variety store chain operating in all English language, Anglophone Provinces and territories of Canada, provinces in Canada. The Bargain! Shop originated as a closeout s ...

, with a number of stores also offering such services as photo finishing, laminating, faxing and photocopying, and

dry cleaning Dry cleaning is any cleaning process for clothing and textiles using a solvent other than water. Dry cleaning still involves liquid, but clothes are instead soaked in a water-free liquid solvent. Tetrachloroethylene (perchloroethylene), known in ...

drop-off. The first store, in Brantford Ontario, started as a stationery store in 1907. During the 1950s and 1960s, there were over 1000 Stedmans and affiliated stores in Canada. The affiliated stores were privately owned variety stores operating under different names, though purchasing through Stedmans. During the late 1960s through the 1970s, there were several stores across Canada that were "combination" stores (that is, Stedmans and its sister chain Macleods Hardware) in operation. Some stores today still contain a restaurant named The Copper Grill. From about the 1960s into the 1980s, though, many Stedmans stores were also located in larger cities. Those stores were similar in size to those of the

Kmart Kmart Corporation ( , doing business as Kmart and stylized as kmart) is an American retail company that owns a chain of big box department stores. The company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States. The company was inc ...

and

Woolco Woolco was an American-based discount retail chain. It was founded in 1962 in Columbus, Ohio, by the F. W. Woolworth Company. It was a full-line discount department store unlike the five-and-dime Woolworth stores which operated at the time. At its ...

chains, with a large selection of merchandise; those locations often served as anchor tenants for suburban

shopping center A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...

s and malls.

Company ownership

* 1962: Stedmans purchased by

Gamble-Skogmo Gamble-Skogmo Inc. was a conglomerate of retail chains and other businesses that was headquartered in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. Business operated or franchised by Gamble-Skogmo included Gambles hardware and auto supply stores, Woman's World an ...

from Stedmans Brothers Ltd. * 1980: CanWest Capital (later CanWest Global) purchases Macleod-Stedmans Ltd. *1992: Macleod-Stedmans Inc. becomes a dealer-owned cooperative named Cotter Canada. It would later be renamed Tru Serv Canada. *2011: Tru Serv Canada is purchased by

Rona, Inc. Rona, Inc. (stylized as RONA) is a Canadian retailer of home improvement and construction products and services, owned by the United States-based retailer Lowe's. Founded in 1939, the company operates a mixture of company-owned and franchised ...

*2014: Tru Serv Canada rebrands as Ace Canada *2020: Peavey Industries acquires Ace Canada Today, the remaining Stedman's V&S stores are independently owned, and there is no larger purchasing company.

External links

Official website

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stedmans VandS Department stores of Canada Companies based in Winnipeg